2

My Galaxy S1 (Gingerbread) has a context menu button below the lower left of the screen which brings up various extra soft-buttons. For example, in the Twitter app, I use this to pop-up an additional menu which includes a switch user soft-button.

I have recently acquired a Nexus 7 which is lovely. However, the three screen buttons are Back, Home, and Multitask[I think?] and I can't work out how to bring up the same context menus which I use to use. When I press the Multitask button in any app, I just get a list of running apps.

Have I missed something? Is there no context menu option in Jellybean?

How do I get to the Twitter App switch user soft-button (etc)?

Improve this question
1
  • If anyone else has this specific Twitter issue, the option to change user has been moved on to the "ME" tab, on the left next to the settings button.
    – gingerbreadboy
    Commented Jan 6, 2013 at 15:35

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
4

Since Android 4, devices no longer need to have hardware soft buttons for menu, back, home etc.

They are now part of the screen, provided by the OS. The menu button has now been replaced by 3 dots in the top corner of the program - if these 3 dots on top of each other are not visible, then the app hasn't been updated for ICS+, and you will not be able to access the menu items (unless you are rooted).

If you are rooted, you can download the button savior app that will overlay buttons onto the screen - you can set one to the menu button, to then access the apps menu.

Here is a screenshot of the button you have to press to access the app menu:

(See the thing in the yellow square)

Screenshot

Improve this answer
6
  • Connect your device with a USB cable,
  • activate USB debugging
  • issue: $ adb shell input keyevent 82

Alternative geeky answer, let's say.

Improve this answer
4
  • Nice. Any nasty side effects?
    – gingerbreadboy
    Commented Dec 28, 2012 at 21:44
  • 1
    No nasty side effect. The phone does not even need to be rooted to do that.
    – m-ric
    Commented Dec 31, 2012 at 17:58
  • That's perfect, thanks! Made an alias for easy access.
    – Richard Connamacher
    Commented Jun 7, 2013 at 19:16
  • This is a life saver. Phone had both cap sense buttons dead, and not rooted so the build.prop and button savior methods wouldn't work.
    – cde
    Commented Mar 2, 2015 at 0:27
0

Very device and rom dependent, but some devices offer an alternative method to perform a menu press. For example, the Galaxy S5 and similar generation galaxy variants have a soft button that works like the multi Tasker button on short press, but is the menu button as a long press. Earlier Galaxy S4 had the functionality reversed, with the menu button being the default. The sidekick 4G had hard buttons with similar short/long press functionality.

Rooting also provides a variety of extra options, like editing the keyboard layout files to add or change the soft and hard button functionality, virtual buttons at the bottom or in the status bar, over lay buttons, etc.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .